


De Lacey’s Eyes

by pigeonstatueconundrum



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternative Timeline, Canonical Character Death, Eliot Searching The Monster's Memories, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, M/M, Old Quentin, Pining, The Monster & Quentin """"friendship"""", The Monster meets Old Quentin, the mosaic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18442454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonstatueconundrum/pseuds/pigeonstatueconundrum
Summary: “Perhaps you can tell me,” The Monster asks his other half, “do I have a name?”She scoffs “Why would you need one?”Desperate for anything that can help him escape The Monster, Eliot searches the furthermost forgotten corners of his captors mind. Instead he finds something unexpected, his home.A young Monster meets old Quentin.





	De Lacey’s Eyes

 

_“Perhaps you can tell me,” The Monster asks his other half, “do I have a name?”_

_She scoffs “Why would you need one?”_

 

Eliot’s been hunting through The Monster’s memories for weeks now. It feels like weeks. Time is an illusion, he recalls his younger self, full of bravado and infatuation, boasting to a beautiful boy. He could go back to that moment. To rewatch the stutters from Quentin’s mouth, neither a yes or a no either way, to Eliot’s offer.

He won’t though. It feels too self-indulgent to get lost in the past when the future is so tenuous. To lie in Margo’s arms, hug Arielle, sing to Teddy, share a secret smile across a room with Quentin, to kiss him on his slack mouth and feel him come to life under his lips.

Instead he trawls through The Monster’s memories, desperate for any clue that he can pass on. He hopes that the information he was able to give Penny was enough to keep them fighting. At least turn their chances from impossible to improbable. Eliot remembers Penny’s mumbled non-comital answer when he asked about Q. Better to look through the horrors in The Monster’s mind than dwell on his own.

He’s down to the dregs now. The scraps far, far into the recesses of the Monster’s mind. Everything is tinged in vicious anxiety in the wake of his sister's death. He flits through time and space, never landing long enough to let the gods in relentless pursuit catch up. It’s all a blur of run, kill, run repeat, the slaughter becoming banal in the repetition.

Even with the benefit of seeing the world through The Monster’s heightened perception, Eliot is unable to comprehend the worlds he sees. In his grief and fear, The Monster is bending time and space. Eliot is by his side seeing it all in dizzying flashes of light and shadow, the only way his human eyes can comprehend the cosmos.

For a second, he thinks he sees Jane Chatwin, alone in the Clock Barrens, before it’s gone replaced by the nauseous kaleidoscope of creation.

The Monster and his unseen companion lands in a forest. A very familiar forest. The air in Eliot’s incorporate lungs gets a little lighter, a little sweeter.

Fillory.

The Monster has no cause to pause, striding off into the trees with purpose. Pulled in the direction of the invisible energies that drew him there in the first place. He’s in the body of a child, olive skinned and dark haired. The Monster had slaughtered their whole family before turning to bestow the worst fate of all on the child as he cowered in fear. Eliot has not seen the boy’s soul in his Happy Place. He doubts the boy would have lasted long against the creatures roaming the subconscious.

As The Monster walks around the trees Eliot starts to recognise where they are. There’s the sapling Arielle planted to replace the tree they cut down to make Teddy’s crib. There’s the stream he pushed Q into during the climax of a weeklong argument. There’s the path to…

The Cottage. The sunlight dazzles Eliot for a moment as they enter the clearing. So perfect, as if it’s be conjured from Eliot’s mind not The Monster’s. The neat rows of their garden, the rough couch, the bright layer of chalk dust that covers everything. Of all his lifetimes, this is the one Eliot knows best.  
  
The Monster unburdened by sentimentality walks forward. Through the echo of the memory Eliot can sense why he’s come here. The Mosaic. Tiles are haphazardly strewn across the ground, a pattern half completed. The Monster picks up a tile and inspects it. The power is still there, pulsing around the clearing. But It’s clearly not what The Monster was looking for.

“Hello.”

Eliot and The Monster turn as one. Eliot’s heart stops. It’s Quentin, deeply wrinkled and bowed with age, but still heart-stoppingly Quentin. His Q, the only version of the man Eliot Waugh could hold any claim to.

He calls his name in warning and in greeting, but no one hears him. Unaware of him, Quentin is smiling at The Monster.

Eliot knows what Quentin is thinking. He’s remembering Teddy at that age, full of questions and never satisfied with any of the answers the collected brainstorming of three adult could provide. He’s seeing the shock of black hair and thinking about Teddy’s youngest, the appropriately named Margaret, a tiny hellion queen that would throw the cottage into chaos during her visits.

“Q.” Eliot begs as the memory of his friend walks blindly towards the broken god. He looks around desperately. Where was his counterpart, equally grey and old, he never left Quentin’s side, not in this lifetime?

Then he sees it. The disturbed earth and a bunch of dying flowers standing in their best mug. Fully illuminated by the sunlight, it’s obvious that Quentin is older than Eliot has ever saw him. He’s moving slow, picking his way down from the cottage with deliberate steps. He’d always managed to keep his thick head of hair even as it became snowy white with age. Quentin is going bald.

“I’m so sorry Q.” Eliot tells the ghost.

The Monster stares unblinking as Quentin introduces himself. “I’m Quentin, What’s your name?”

“What happened to the mosaic?” The Monster demands, his vessel’s tiny head tipping to one side to observe Quentin.

“I solved it.” Quentin smiles, a bittersweet curl to his mouth. It’s all Eliot can do to tamp down on the desire to comfort him, echoes from a time he could do so without fear of rejection.

“That’s no use to me.” The Monster snaps, his tiny body simmering with danger. He looks up at Quentin, who is still smiling, blind to the truth of the abomination that stands before him.

His eyes flash with fire, “You’re no use to me.”

Quentin stares back into those flaming eyes, not even flinching from the rage emanating for the Monster. Eliot watches, his every atom urging Quentin to run. He won’t be strong enough to see this. The age he’s endured watching The Monster decimate those in his path; villages, families, gods, will be as nothing compared to The Monster killing this one tiny, ancient and beloved man.

“I don’t fear death.” Quentin turns his back to The Monster and makes his way stiffly towards the chair. Eliot recognises his favourite pillow with a pang, Quentin must have moved it after he died.

He sits down with careful hand on the pillow to guide him. His smile never wavers. “It will do neither of us any good.”

It warms Eliot’s heart even as it clenches in fear, to see Quentin like this. In the space between childhood optimism and adult stubbornness stands Quentin Coldwater.

“What is your name?” Quentin asks, picking up a pattern sheet for the current mosaic.

The Monster is still staring. His answer when it comes is halting, as if despite himself. “I have no name. I was never given one.”

“That’s a shame.” Quentin bends slowly to drag a stack of tiles closer, “Everyone should have a name.”

Quentin places a tile, arthritic fingers smoothing it reverently into place, “Are you hungry, when did you last eat?”

Eliot shivers, remembering the family of talking bears The Monster had slaughtered for their meat. The Monster seems to recall the event differently, replying with a small smile, “I could eat.”

“Get yourself some bread from inside.” Quentin offers, attention already back on the mosaic. He smooths out the paper tenderly and motions towards the cottage.

Eliot is forced to leave the sunlight as The Monster crosses the threshold into their home. He knows every inch of this place, filled with memories and love. There is proof that he existed in every inch, from the wonky shelves to the clothes still hanging in the closet. There is evidence of his death too. There is a single mug and plate on the table from breakfast. Eliot looks at the peach pit, hollow without the flesh. The urge to pick up a blanket from the bed and take it outside is overwhelming. He wants to wrap Quentin up in it, reminding him not to catch his death while out in the cold. He trails his fingers over the bed, fooling himself into thinking he can feel the worn fabric beneath his phantom fingers.

The Monster is stuffing bread into his mouth not pausing to add any jam. Eliot recognises the jar, the scrap of blue ribbon around the lid. It’s from Teddy’s farm, although he supposes It would be Felix or Agnes’ farm by now. His son would now be getting too old to run the orchard alone.

Outside Quentin is still putting together the Mosaic, methodically placing the tiles. He looks up at The Monster stuffing the last of the loaf into his mouth, burnt crust and all. Quentin always used to burn the bread. It was Eliot’s job to remind him to take it out the oven in time.

“If you have no name,” Quentin says, “What do other people call you? What should I call you?”

The Monster shrugs, a deceptively innocent gesture on his youthful frame, “The only person that ever talked to me is my sister. She is dead.”

Quentin pauses his work to look up at The Monster, the sympathy all the more pronounced on his deeply lined face. “I’m sorry.”

He reaches out and pats The Monster on the arm. He flinches away at the display of affection. He still draws closer as Quentin gets back to work. He squats down by the tiles, looking at the pattern intently. They sit in silence for a few minutes, only the click of tiles interrupting the uneasy silence.

“This is boring. Why are you still doing this,” The Monster gestures to the mosaic, “There is no magic left in it, I would be able to feel it if there was.”

Quentin smiles that bittersweet smile again, “There’s still magic in this place.”

He looks over his shoulder. For a blissful moment Eliot believes Quentin is looking at him. But his friend’s sad eyes look right through him. He’s looking at the grave, Eliot’s own not so final resting place.

The Monster pouts petulantly, not caring for the cryptic answer. Eliot feels Quentin is having fun channelling his inner Fogg.

“Why do humans waste their time with such pointless tasks.” The Monster snaps, slamming down a tile he’d been playing with.

He doesn’t get the reaction he was hoping for. Quentin only takes the shattered pieces and cradles them gently in his gnarled hands.

“I don’t know really,” Quentin admits, “For the last 50 years I have laid out patterns. I did it with my best friend, my wife, my children and even my grandchildren.”

He laughs, tugging an errant strand of hair from his face. Gone are the fancy plaits that Eliot and Arielle used to do for him. Relying on a simple messy ponytail to keep his hair out of his eyes. The paper-thin skin of his fingers is speckled with a rainbow of chalk dust. The motion inadvertently brushes a smudge of blue across his cheek, “It’s something to do while I wait for death.”

The answer doesn’t amuse The Monster, “Why don’t you go out and do something fun with the last days of your life.”

“Like what?” Quentin asks, genuinely curious.

The Monster visibly tries and fails to think of what a dying 70-year-old would want to do. Eliot has never seen The Monster try and relate to someone who wasn’t blood before. Empathy is a terrifying look on him.

Quentin takes pity on The Monster, “I have lived a full life,” He tells him, “full of beauty and joy, and I lived it here.”

He waves a hand to encompass his world, the cottage and their little patch of land, “I succeeded in my quest, my family are happy, and I have my mosaic and memories of a long lifetime to fill the time.”

“I could heal you.” The Monster offers in a small unsure voice.

Eliot watches Quentin shake his head, “What good would that do?”

“You could live longer. Have more time to play with pointless patterns.” The Monster replies.

The Monster has never met anyone that was happy to die, Eliot realises. Nothing triggered a person’s need to live more than meeting The Monster. Quentin’s quiet acceptance was enough to gain The Monster’s attention, a funny little puzzle that might be worth solving.

Q laughs, not cruelly only with fondness. He holds up the shattered pieces of tile and moves his fingers over them. The action is stiff but well-practised, the form familiar after a lifetime of use. The tile reshapes becoming whole once again. Eliot never tired of seeing that particular piece of magic, however often he saw it. And he saw it a lot. Their life together was never simple, it was prone to frustration and things got broken despite their best intentions. Quentin was always willing to fix them though, it was something he’s always excelled at.

“Finishing the patterns was never the point.” Quentin hands the tile back to The Monster, “It was the journey taken to get there and the people I shared that time with that mattered.”

The Monster takes the tile, “But you are alone now.”

Quentin looks through Eliot, smiling bittersweetly at the dying flower in their makeshift vase, “I am not alone, I have you to talk to don’t I.”

The Monster has no response to that, rolling the tile between his twitching fingers.

“Come and help me.” Quentin offers.

The monster blinks up at him nervously, “Why?”

“You might enjoy it,” Quentin suggests, “We used to make it fun for the grandchildren.”

The Monster is torn between his natural instincts and the promise of something new. Eliot watches as The Monster stares from the precipice.

Quentin is unaware of this, his face open with unconditional acceptance, “Would you like to play a game with me?”

Eliot shivers as The Monster’s dark eyes light up in delight, “What do I win if I help you?”

He considers, “I have no prize to offer you. Will the satisfaction of helping an old man be enough?”

“No.”

Quentin nods, “What would you like then?”

The Monster looks unsure. No one had ever asked what he wanted. Eliot has inspected every moment of the creature’s existence in minute, desperate for any clues. He’s seen nothing but a life categorized by taking what he wanted in spite of others. The offer is unprecedented.

But that’s Quentin, isn’t it, unprecedented and open hearted. Eliot didn’t realise it could hurt more than it already did, getting this shadow of his lost love back. That it’s The Monster, his captor and tormentor, giving him this gift galls most of all. To see again how Quentin brings kindness and understanding to even the most wretched. Eliot, Exhibit A of that particular virtue, can relate to the disbelieving hope in The Monster’s eyes.

The Monster averts his eyes, making his request shyly, “A name?”

Quentin nods as if this is normal request. His eyes twinkle at the ancient evil as if he was one of his grandchildren come for a visit, “We’ll see.”

Eliot witnesses the two figures peacefully putting together the Mosaic. The Monster happy to let Quentin direct his tile placement. Unseen and assured that The Monster wasn’t going to drag him away into another memory any time soon, Eliot takes the chance to look around.

The current pattern is familiar. Not just in the way that a thousand variations of a limited number of colours will be familiar, but in a way rings a particular bell deep within him. He looks closer at the pattern, the paper yellowed with age. He recognises his own handwriting, the number 365 in the corner. They’d been so optimistic then, counting the days as well as the number of patterns.

It’s the pattern from their anniversary. When Quentin had kissed him nervous and quick as if he wasn’t sure he’d get a chance again, no knowing a whole lifetime of them awaited.

The whole table is full of them. A small pile of patterns significant patterns collected over the years, the significance known only to them. The day they met Arielle, Teddy’s birth, Arielle’s death, The births of all their Grandchildren. They’re all here waiting to be remade and recalled.

“Whose grave is that?”

The question startles them both. Neither need to turn to see where the Monster is pointing.

Quentin’s smile drops for the first time. He puts down the tile he is tightly gripping. “My husband’s.” he whispers.

And Eliot was wrong, it can hurt more.

It was never formalised, but they never went out of their way to correct anyone. It wasn’t their fault that Fillory didn’t have an equivalent of a Best Man they always said. Teddy had both their names but that was because Arielle didn’t want their child to have anything from her rotten family. Even then Eliot was too much of a coward to ask, as if in searching for confirmation would only bring Quentin’s attention to the terrible mistake he’d not noticed he was making for all those years.

Eliot remembers Quentin asking why not, after such a proof of concept, they didn’t give it another shot. The memory is never far from his mind now, raked to the surface by Eliot’s re-examining of his greatest regrets. No wonder Quentin had wanted to have this again.

Because Eliot had never considered what Q’s life had been like after he died. Never let himself consider the possibility from the other side. For him the universe had restarted again with his death. The world literally revolving around him. But with the proof thrown in his oblivious face, it’s now impossible to ignore how that death must have lingered for Quentin.

“Why are you sad when you think of him, do you miss him?” The Monster asks mercilessly fascinated by the grief Quentin wasn’t even bothering to hide.

“Do you miss you sister?” Quentin returns.

The Monster draws his knees up under his chin, believably childlike, “Yes. We shared everything, even a name.”

He carries on placing the tiles, “They called us The Twins. I don’t know who I am without her. I do not like being alone.”

Quentin reaches down and squeezes The Monster’s shoulder. This time the Monster doesn’t flinch away, shyly settling into the contact.

“I miss my husband too.” Quentin admits, “But I have my memories of him and I know I will see him again someday.”

Eliot knows he’s thinking of Margo, bursting into the Physical Cottage covered in desperation and grave dirt. Thinking of his letter to her, entrusted to their descendants, a legacy that saved magic.

The Monster doesn’t know or even care about that, “I don’t want my memories,” He cries, “I want her.”

Another tile smashes as the Monster’s mood changes with the wind. Quentin sits back, ready to let the Monster tire himself out. He won’t tire, Eliot knows, he’ll only stop when there is nothing left to destroy. Even Quentin with his affinity for fixing, can’t solve this. Fragments of tile litter the ground, obscuring all their painstaking work.

Quentin sighs, “My wife, we talked about having another child.” He ignores the chaos keeping his voice low.

“All three of us. Teddy was so excited by the idea of a little brother or sister. Arielle said she was naming this one, as I’d saddled Teddy with Theodore Rupert.”

Impossibly, The Monster stops, listening despite himself,

“She wanted to name the baby after her sister. She never got over her death and she wanted something to remember her by.”

The Monster is still now, letting the last fragments fall from his slack fingers.

Quentin takes a long breath, his eyes shining. Eliot knows what’s coming. He reaches over resting his invisible hand over Quentin’s. The motion pure foolish futility for all involved.

But’s all he has left to do.

“Well, Arielle got really sick, really sick. She wouldn’t have lasted the trip to the torrent even if she’d wanted too. When she died it ripped a hole in our family, none of us knew who we were without her.”

Eliot remembers those weeks. Quentin sweeping aside the symptoms of depression, trying to protect Teddy. Letting his problem multiply as they went unchecked. Teddy had been too young to understand but old enough to understand that mummy wasn’t coming back. And there had been Eliot Waugh, what a cosmic joke to leave him as the rock for them to lean on.

“What was her sister’s name?” The Monster asks.

Quentin wipes his eyes, his hand passing through Eliot’s, “Victoria. We would have called the baby Victoria.”

He looks at the Monster. Even among the destruction Quentin reaches for him without hesitation. He smiles at the Monster, every moment of his long life shining in his eyes, “Unless it was a boy. Then we would have called him Victor.”

Realisation dawns on The Monster’s face, sweet and genuine. Eliot’s never seen him like that,

“Thank you.” He breathes.

Quentin nods. Eliot looks at the newly christened Victor. With the bitterness of hindsight, he knows the name won’t stick. If the memory of his beloved sibling doesn’t remain then this fragile little peace won’t make an impact in the long run. But in this dream, it’s hard not to refuse to let hope in.

“We didn’t finish the mosaic though.” The Victor Monster clarifies.

“Looks finished to me.” Quentin motions to the fragments littering the Mosaic’s frame. It’s a chaos of sharp jagged colour. It’s not beautiful, at least not any objective sense, but in an abstract beauty of all life way, it works.

“What does it mean, Victor.” The Monster asks as Quentin gets unsteadily from his feet.

“It’s your name now, it means you and whatever you want that to be.” Quentin replies. He starts to stack the remaining tiles.

“I want my sister back.” Victor says, sending another chill down Eliot’s spine.

“Then it can mean that, victory over death.” Quentin offers. “I’m the last person to lecture you about finding a way to see those you lost after you die.”

He smiles and a monster in the shape of a child tentatively smiles back. The gesture looks wrong on Victor’s paradoxically young face.

An explosion shakes the moment. The tentative emotion on Victor’s face wiped away as he prepares to run. The gods have found them.

“I have to go.” He says. “Thank you for the game and the name.”

“Goodbye Victor.” Quentin says, reforming a blue tile before returning it to the pile.

The Monster pauses, “I hope you see your husband again.”

Q leans forward and presses a kiss to the newly named Monster’s forehead, “I hope you see your sister too.”

Eliot tries to stay in the memory, tries to remain in the sunlight and safety of his home. But wherever The Monster goes so must he. All he gets is lingering look at Quentin, experienced yet hopeful, so close but still too far away. Always inexplicably still his.

Like a dream it’s gone.

Margo is waiting for him in the doorway of the Happy Place.

“You’re reaching.” She informs him, sipping a glass of something golden. “A moment of kindness far removed from reality doesn’t mean he’s going against his true nature.”

“What true nature is that.” Eliot asks, leaning exhausted against the door.

Margo presses a kiss to his forehead, “A ruthless mega-Monster that doesn’t care for the feelings of others.”

Eliot thinks of The Monster, of Victor, finding his smile in the stolen paradise. He thinks of himself day after day raising a child, putting the work into a relationship, laying out the mosaic for fifty years.

He takes the glass from her and drains it, “Now who’s reaching Bambi.”

Eliot walks into the room. He’s expecting Quentin to be there and with the perfect logic of a dream, there he is. Sitting on the sofa waiting for him. In his raw desire, Eliot didn’t specify what version of Quentin he wanted, only wanting him there regardless of form.

This Quentin is simultaneously all of them; the young naive student, a twig from the bushes still stuck in his hair, the nervous yet proud king, his crown an uncomfortable weight, the new father too overwhelmed with joy let in fear, the widower cracking under the inexorable loss, the old man who has seen the beauty of all life waiting to see it all again.

He has a smudge of blue chalk across his cheek.

Eliot falls into Quentin’s expectant arms. “Are you also here to tell me I’m being self-indulgent too.”

Quentin only smiles that bittersweet smile, “You have Margo for that.” He assures.

He observes this version of Margo, flitting in and out of his line of sight. He loves her best like this, the king of her own domain but ready to come back into his orbit when wanted.

“You don’t need to have a reason to need me.” Quentin promises.

Eliot brushes his thumb over the smudge of blue, the pad lingering at the corner of Quentin’s mouth. “When I get out of here…” he promises.

The lips that press against his forehead are dry and cracked, a hint of a beard scratching against his cheek. “I know.” Quentin promises. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is inspired by the old blind man Frankenstein's monster encounters in Mary Shelly's novel. He's the only character that shows the creature compassion, blind to his true terrifying visage. The name Victor for the Monster is also somewhat inspired by this. I've always liked the name Victoria for a child of El/Q, due to a nickname from it being Plum as well as it being the name of an important character from the books. 
> 
> This story pretty much can fully formed from that hilarious line about Starbucks from 4X12. This was how i coped with that episode. 
> 
> I can be found at http://pigeonstatueconundrum.tumblr.com/


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